What he is advocating is the validity of bias in constructing a world view, not the formation of theorems. All fine if you keep your world to yourself, but not pleasant if you feel it deserves a place in a curriculum. Humans may not be truly objective, but if your bias is showing in your theory, you’re doing it wrong.

I was reminded of a Reynolds quote in a paper that laid the foundation for lubrication theory, describing his bemusement at how common knowledge “that a little grease will enable any surfaces to slide for a time”, obscured the true nature of an action that was required for machinery to even operate.

A general ignorance that would have been unsurprising in 1786, but in 1886 (after over a century of the industrial revolution, by some measures) it’s a lot more of an indictment on hubris and intellectual incuriousity. Both of these things are what Kevin Miller is really advocating.

You are being facetious, I hope. No one is obliged to address you as “Dr. Elsberry” outside of an academic setting.

How do manufactured self-pity and phony stories of victimization “prompt engagement?” Anyone with any common sense and decency can see they have exactly the opposite intent. Your persecution stories and phony victimhood are nothing but a lame excuse for ID’s total failure to produce any real science.

Because what I’ve observed over the past two years is complete polarization.

Which has been caused by deliberate ignorance, outright lies, and bigoted, hateful, scapegoating rhetoric from the creationist side.

The various camps sit in their respective corners cackling about how stupid the other guys are, but they rarely talk to each other—except to hurl insults.

Honest scientists have been “talking” by means of peer-reviewed papers describing research, experimentation, and logic that refines and reinforces the present-day theory of evolution. The creationists have done no such talking; they have, instead, responded by ignoring all that work, making up pseudoscientific rubbish and repeating it after it’s debunked, crying ever more hysterically about “persecution” by a “dogmatic Darwinist establishment,” and, in some cases, threatening the lives of their critics (as the Dover plaintiffs were threatened, and as many Turkish professors were threatened by followers of creationist Harun Yahya).

Very few people engaged in this debate seem open to an honest pursuit of the truth.

See my above point about all those peer-reviewed papers.

Most are more interested in scoring debating points, looking clever, and promoting their own agenda.

OUR agenda is honest science, freedom of speech and religion, and public school education uncorrupted by religious intolerance and con-artistry. What’s yours?

Is it a fair comparison to suggest that if God didn’t nudge/guide evolution along the way that He doesn’t interact with His creation in a personal way now? Do you really think God would allow Himself to be detected scientifically? He might (as is His decision) but I doubt He would, based on His desire for free will in His followers.

Maybe, Yes, Nonsense. Your choosing just one of a multitude of religions to base that baseless assertion.

In my mind, there is nothing about understanding the mechanism of creation that belittles the creator. Personally, I find the notion of a self-contained mechanism of evolution more theologically satisfying than a partially-functional mechanism that needs divine help along the way.

Then I would suggest you haven’t thought about the real ramifications of what you just typed above.

Contrary to how some critics have depicted the film, Expelled is not about promoting a singular point of view, namely, Intelligent Design. It’s about ensuring that all points of view receive a fair and adequate hearing. We made this film because we had good reason to believe that this was not the case with ID, and I stand by that assertion.

Kevin, ID is receiveing a fair and adequate hearing. It’s the same hearing natural selection recieves. Do biological research that provides evidence, not just assertions, and publish the results. The problem with ID is that its proponents want it to be taught in high school as an alternative to natural selection, when it hasn’t proven itself–in the fair and adequate process that exists–to be a viable alternative.

In addition, my hope is that the film will prompt people on all sides of the issue to engage with one another.

Is that why PZ Myers was prevented from seeing the screening of the film? Is that why the film is being marketed so heavily to religious schools? It’s really easy to have a reasoned debate on this issue–do real biological research that provides evidence. Of course that’s a lot more difficult and time consuming than making a movie where you rehash old claims that still don’t have any actual evidence supporting them.

How does science distinguish between a paradigm problem and a research problem? In other words, when a researcher encounters an anomaly, how does he/she determine whether the anomaly is a result of a problem with the data rather than a problem with the theory under which the data is being examined?

OK, this is actually a reasonable question. However it’s a question that anyone reasonably educated in the sciences would know the answer to. So it’s clear that you are making claims that natural selection is a faulty theory despite not being reasonably educated in the sciences. So maybe you should stop critiquing natural selection, and focus on asking these types of reasonable questions.

Here’s the answer, in a nutshell: when the anomalies start piling up, scientists begin to suspect there’s something wrong with the theory. One anomaly is a problem to be further explored within the theory. Two anomalies are problems to be explored within the theory. Lots and lots of anomalies are problems to be explored within the theory.

But there are two things you are obviously misunderstanding about natural selection and the process of scientific research: First, there just aren’t any real anomalies within evolutionary theory. There are things that aren’t yet understood, but that’s not the same as an anomaly. An anomaly is something that we can’t provide a good explanation for, despite lots of effort, without making ad hoc assumptions that technically violate the theory. We just don’t have any of those in evolutionary theory, and the people who are telling you we do aren’t people who are actually doing biological research. Why are you so eager to believe the non-researchers over the researchers?

Second, if anomalies start piling up, some young turk scientist, all full of himself and thinking the old guys are full of shit, is going to propose an alternative that explains everything the theory explains, and in addition also explains the anomalies. (Go read, as Wes has mentioned, Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.) There is no grand conspiracy, because scientists who resolve the anomalies make themselves famous. But we don’t see that here, and that in itself is some real evidence.

The scientists doing evolutionary theory don’t see real anomalies, and no-one doing real biological research is claiming to have found a solution to the anomalies. What we have are mostly non-biologists claiming “God did it,” which is a wholly non-testable hypothesis, so it can’t be a good scientific solution to the problem of anomalies, even if they do exist and scientists have just overlooked them.

This isn’t so hard. Not if you’re honestly asking questions. And, sorry to be personally critical, but if you’re involved with Expelled in any way, I’m dubious you really are.

But don’t claim nobody could answer your questions, because I just did.

I don’t think Ken Miller said that god influences things on the quantum level in a way that we are unable to observe. I think he gave that as an example as one possible way that god could do things without being observed. I could be wrong but that’s how I remember it anyway. I dunno why god wouldn’t want to be noticed, but hey that’s a different story!

Been following your comments over at PT and Pharangula for a while and just started lurking here a couple weeks ago. Great work!

I see that Kevin in #10 has pulled out the “we’re all buds” ploy. I was kinda expecting it. Trying to drum up a little empathy by making like “one of the guys”. The next step, if I recall, is the knife in the back if you fall for it and lighten up a bit….